Friday, August 29, 2014

August 29, 1864---"'Little Mac' For President!"



AUGUST 29, 1864:    

The Democratic National Convention meets in Chicago, Illinois. Originally scheduled for the Fourth of July weekend, the Convention was delayed until August “in deference to the desire of a very large number of the leading members of the Conservative Union Democratic party throughout the country.” In fact, the Convention was so badly split between War Democrats (who wanted the war to continue until Union victory was achieved), Peace Democrats (who wanted a negotiated end to the war), and Copperheads (who wanted an immediate end to the war, recognition of the Confederacy, and the restoration of slavery) that the Convention had to be delayed in order to find some common ground for all the factions.


On the first day of the Convention, the Democratic Party adopted a Platform, the planks of which read:   

Resolved, That in the future, as in the past, we will adhere with unswerving fidelity to the Union under the Constitution as the only solid foundation of our strength, security, and happiness as a people, and as a framework of government equally conducive to the welfare and prosperity of all the States, both Northern and Southern.

Resolved, That this convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war, during which, under the pretense of a military necessity of war-power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view of an ultimate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States.

Resolved, That the direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution, and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.

Resolved, That the aim and object of the Democratic party is to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of the States unimpaired, and they hereby declare that they consider that the administrative usurpation of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by the Constitution; the subversion of the civil by military law in States not in insurrection; the arbitrary military arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence of American citizens in States where civil law exists in full force; the suppression of freedom of speech and of the press; the denial of the right of asylum; the open and avowed disregard of State rights; the employment of unusual test-oaths; and the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense is calculated to prevent a restoration of the Union and the perpetuation of a Government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

Resolved, That the shameful disregard of the Administration to its duty in respect to our fellow-citizens who now are and long have been prisoners of war and in a suffering condition, deserves the severest reprobation on the score alike of public policy and common humanity.

Resolved, That the sympathy of the Democratic party is heartily and earnestly extended to the soldiery of our army and sailors of our navy, who are and have been in the field and on the sea under the flag of our country, and, in the events of its attaining power, they will receive all the care, protection, and regard that the brave soldiers and sailors of the republic have so nobly earned.

The Platform reflected all the weaknesses of the Democratic Party in 1864:

Most of the planks of the Platform were indictments of the Lincoln Administration, and relatively easily agreed upon.

Slavery and Emancipation, however, were pressing issues throughout the country that the Democrats could not reconcile among themselves, and so they simply ignored these issues despite the fact that any end to the war would bring them to the front and center of the national consciousness. 

The second plank was written solely by the Copperhead Clement Vallandigham who had previously been exiled to the South and who was the head of the Knights of The Golden Circle. Many Americans of all political stripes considered him a traitor. Thus, his prominence in writing a plank was divisive in and of itself.

As a result of Vallandigham’s prominent contribution, the War Democrats demanded the right to draft a plank. The sixth plank contradicted the second in spirit, and was challenged by Copperheads and Peace Democrats as being “coded” to continue the war.

On August 31st, the War Democrat and former Commanding General of the Union, General George B. McClellan, still a military officer, was chosen as the Democrats’ Presidential candidate after some intraparty wrangling. George Pendleton of Ohio, a Copperhead and a protégé of Vallandigham’s, was named as Vice-Presidential candidate in order to balance the ticket. McClellan was 37, Pendleton 39. Together, they made up (and remain) the youngest Presidential ticket in American history.

McClellan was (as was traditional for the time) not present in Chicago and not openly campaigning for himself. He all but doomed the Democratic cause by acting wholly in character. When telegraphed that he had won the nomination McClellan did what McClellan apparently always did best --- he prevaricated. It was not until September 8th that he wired back his acceptance of the nomination, along with his outright rejection of Vallandigham’s plank:

. . . [T]he Union must be preserved at all hazards.

I could not look in the face of my gallant comrades of the army and navy, who have survived so many bloody battles, and tell them that their labors and the sacrifice of so many of our slain and wounded brethren had been in vain; that we had abandoned that Union for which we had so often periled our lives.

A vast majority of our people, whether in the army and navy or at home, would, as I would, hail with unbounded joy the permanent restoration of peace, on the basis of the Union under the Constitution without the effusion of another drop of blood.  But no peace can be permanent without union.

As to the other subjects presented in the resolutions of the Convention, I need only say that I should seek, in the Constitution of the United States, and the laws framed in accordance therewith, the rule of my duty, and the limitations of Executive power; endeavor to restore economy in public expenditure, re-establish the supremacy of law, and by the operation of a more rigorous nationality, resume our commanding position among the nations of the earth . . .

Betrayed, the Copperheads and the Peace Democrats refused to actively support McClellan’s candidacy. Pendleton even spoke against him in Party circles. This, plus the unforeseen Autumn upswing in the Union’s fortunes of war, sank McClellan’s candidacy.


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